Today Logitech is announcing that they have added to their headset lineup with two new products. This is a fairly big announcement as it has been around five years since Logitech did anything with their gaming headset. Units like the recently reviewed G35 and G230 have been around since 2010. Users have been complaining as of late about a lack of fresh products on the scene, even though those previous products have adequately filled their niche.

The two new products coming out are the wireless G933 and the wired G633. These are under the new brand Artemis Spectrum Gaming Headsets. The G633 has a MSRP of $149.99 putting it at the higher end of gaming headsets. Compare this to the G35 which originally shared that MSRP, but is now around $79 at retail. The top end G933 is a pricier option at $199.99 US.

Logitech has done a lot of work in terms of physical characteristics and the software they are using to drive these units. Neither comes as a pure analog solution, but instead utilizes a USB connection to power the wired and wireless units. Logitech continually refines its gaming software and this provides a great amount of flexibility when it comes to usage scenarios and audio features for these headphones.

Powering these cans is a newly designed 40 mm driver that is created from a stiffened fabric rather than paper or plastic. Logitech is branding these as the patent pending Pro-G audio drivers. The engineers worked with materials people to develop the technology that is said to provide audiophile quality sound across a variety of applications. I had asked why Logitech stayed with a 40 mm driver when other companies were utilizing larger 50 mm units which can deliver potentially deeper bass. The answer was that they discovered that 40 mm was the sweet spot for this material to provide a flat curve without diminishing the high end. The 50 mm prototypes just did not have the high end performance of the 40 mm units, so it was decided to sacrifice a bit of the low end to keep things more balanced and brighter.

Previously the Logitech Gaming headphones used Dolby Headphone support to simulate 3D/positional sound. This is changing up with these latest headphones. The new ones do support a virtual 7.1 audio solution as well as the new DTS Headphone: X support. This is an area where Logitech has again done quite a bit of work to improve their HRTF support. Ryan was shown around 30 different ear “models” that were used to measure how sound was reflected, refracted, and tone shifted when audio was played around these models in multiple positions. HRTF stands for Head Related Transfer Function. Humans can recognize sound positioning through a lot of processing in the brain. The brain can recognize when a sound’s tone is shifted due to the individual curves and shape of a person’s ear. Logitech has taken this data and created a software solution that more accurately provides this effect than their previous G35 and higher headphones which features the 7.1 functionality. This functionality will also seem more realistic when combined with a higher end driver, such as what is included with the Pro-G audio drivers.

The boom microphone is very similar to the previous models. It can swing down and provide some decent audio for outgoing. It will not match more professional units, but we can only hope that it is superior to the previous generation of headphones that Logitech has put out.

One area that could potentially be controversial is that of the LED lighting on the headphones. The headsets light up around the cups and can be changed to the tune of 16.8 million colors. The side plates can also be swapped, so potentially custom made plates can be swapped in to show whatever logos or pictures as one desires. One positive of this design is that the LED lights are facing to the rear of the listener’s head, so potential reflections off of a screen (or glasses) will just not happen. The headphones also feature three programmable G-Keys, a feature that was on the previous G35 units. It also features the mute button and the scroll wheel to control volume. These are handy, handy things for those that have already created a dozen macros on their keyboard and could potentially start mashing buttons. Not like I have ever done that before trying to mute some headphones…

These headphones also have a unique feature in that they can dynamically mix multiple inputs. The G633 can mix audio from two different inputs while the G933 can handle three inputs. There are multiple use scenarios for this such as playing on a console while having the headphones attached to a cellphone. Users can mix and match this functionality in a variety of scenarios that will fit their lifestyle. This is slightly more interesting for the wireless G933 as more devices can be connected, and the user can be free of a plethora of cables attached to the base unit.

The G933 also have an option of being a wired unit through analog cables. This does provide some nice flexibility for users, as well as playing for hours more when the batteries of the wireless headphones are recharging. This flexibility was not featured in previous wired headsets and is a nice change of pace.

Certain products have a long lifespan when it comes to product cycles. Headphones are one of these areas (just ask Grado and how many generations they have gone through in the past 25 years). Logitech has done some serious groundwork to make sure that these are competitive and high quality units. The final proof will of course be listening to these cans under multiple scenarios to see if the new drivers are in fact as good as they claim to be. With the laser like focus that Logitech has been aiming at gaming as of late, I am pretty comfortable in the idea that these headsets are the real deal when it comes to quality audio under gaming, movies, and music situations. Individual tastes will of course vary, but Logitech has spent a great deal of time and effort to make these competitive with the industry at large. It is a good step forward and I look forward to hearing the results.

The G633 will be available starting in September while the G933 will come to market in an October timeframe. The DTS Headphone:X support will be a software upgrade with the Logitech Gaming software in October.

[H]ard|OCP has taken the guesswork out of GPU performance on the current version of Witcher 3 in this round up featuring 10 GPUs, five from each company. Of course only NVIDIA supports lips occluded by PhysX powered mustachios but not everyone is obsessed with perfect hair. Indeed when it takes a $1000 video card just to enable the lowest options on HairWorks at 1440p without disabling every other feature one wonders why HairWorks had gamers tied up in knots. Check out the full review for performance comparisons and even some HairWorks nitpicking.

This weekend also marks the 11th Fragging Frogs VLAN party, which kicks off on Saturday August 29 10:00 AM ET and will go until the last frog has been fragged. Sign up in this thread if you haven't already and if you are new to the Fragging Frogs follow the links to the FAQ threads for information on which patches or mods you will need to apply to your games to get playing as soon as possible.

"We take The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, using the 1.08.2 patch and latest drivers, find the highest playable settings and examine apples-to-apples performance with and without GameWorks across 10 video cards. We put a focus on NVIDIA HairWorks and how it impacts performance and find out which video cards provide the best gaming value."

Lian Li has announced a new mini-ITX enclosure featuring ASUS ROG branding, and this compact gaming case supports full size power supplies and larger liquid coolers, though not everything will fit inside this tiny enclosure.

There are more than a couple of similarities to the NCASE M1, that crowdfunded mini-ITX enclosure that Lian Li built for NCASE, but the PC-Q17 doesn’t support dual-width liquid coolers the same way. Part of this has to do with the side window in this new case, essential to show off your diminutive gaming rig. So where does that 240mm radiator fit?

Not everyone will like having the cooler outside of the enclosure, but it’s nice that the case offers this functionality without having to modify it should you desire this level of CPU (or in the case of an AMD Fury X, GPU) cooling. For many a smaller air cooler could suffice, and as we can see from this build photo it does look very nice housing a complete system.

As usual no pricing or availability information accompanies this announcement.

The portable Steam machine previously referred to as the Steam Boy is now called the Smach Zero and you can pre-order it starting November 10th for $300. The device will feature a 5-inch 720p touch screen powered by an AMD Steppe Eagle SoC with a Jaguar-based CPU and GCN-based Radeon graphics. It will have 4GB of RAM onboard, 32GB of internal storage with more available vis an SD Card Slot and support for USB OTG. HEXUS was told the device should be able to handle Half-Life 2, Civilization V, Dota 2, Tropico 5, BioShock Infinite or Cities: Skylines on its integral display or outputted via the HDMI port. Check out more on the Smach Zero here.

"Smach Zero Steam Machine pre-order availability and pricing have both been confirmed by the device maker. Smach published a press release yesterday saying that the handheld will be available on pre-order from 10th November at a special introductory price of $299."

Thankfully a lineup will not be the problem as you will only be able to upgrade to a hero ship by locating a specific power-up present on the map, one hopes there is some randomness to this as otherwise both teams are likely to ignore each other as they battle their teammates to get to the power-up first. There will be two main ship types, the X-Wing and TIE Fighters which have traditionally been the dogfighters and are likely to focus on energy weaponry with limited missile capability. The TIE Interceptor and A-Wing are traditionally faster vehicles intended for scouting or rapid assaults using the A-Wing's concussion missile or the additional laser cannons present on the Interceptor.

According to the links from Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN the rebels will be able to temporarily generate shielding while the Imps will have what is effectively a turbo boost which should vary the tactics used depending on which team you play. Check out the trailer below for a teaser.

"Twenty players will soar through the skies shouting “Zwap! Zwap!” and making noises like a trumpeting elephant driving a car on wet pavement (true story) in Star Wars Battlefront, backed up by more AI ships, in the newly-announced Fighter Squadron mode."

BattleTech is coming back baby! Harebrained Schemes who have successfully rebooted the Shadowrun RPG system on PC and who are in the final steps of releasing the third game in that world have just announced plans to start a new Kickstarter campaign. This time it will be a trip to the world of Battletech, the details are slim but we can expect to see both the larger view of the Battletech galaxy and the Houses that populate it as well as mech management and combat. From what Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN were told this will be turn-based, not the FPS style of the Mechwarrior series of old. No matter, this news is still exciting so keep your eyes peeled for more information.

"Harebrained Schemes is pleased to announce their return to Kickstarter this Fall to partner with backers in co-funding the creation of BATTLETECH. Jordan Weisman, the creator of BattleTech and MechWarrior, is back with the first turn-based BattleTech game for PC in over two decades."

While Morrowind is obviously superior to Oblivion there are those who would rather explore Cyrodiil in the middle of Tamriel. Either way, it will be more pleasant to explore your old hunting grounds with the improvements to the engine made in Skyrim. Not only are we now waiting on the brilliant modders behind Skywind to wrap up now the same group are also getting tantalizingly close to wrapping up Skyblivion. If you don't have both games in your Steam inventory yet you should keep an eye out for deals. There is a second trailer you can watch over at Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN.

"Recent videos show many, many minutes of progress on Skyblivion, trotting around the province of Cyrodiil, leaping into Oblivion gates, and pottering about the Shivering Isles. It looks a lot like Oblivion but in Skyrim, which is sort of the goal of the whole thing. Skyblivion!"

It looks like Total War:Warhammer will be teasing us with animations of some of the units we will see in the new game, starting with the Demigryph a smaller and ride-able version of that worlds Griffons, which you do not want to annoy. You can expect a number of trailers as the game gets closer to release; this Friday you can expect to see another video showing the Demigryph in game. The Empire does certainly have some nice troops which will be fun to learn about but like Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN it is the greenskin troop movies I am looking forward to seeing.

"There’s a more pressing matter though. Did Games Workshop tell Creative Assembly that the Warhammer Fantasy world would be dead before Total War: Warhammer was released? It seems unlikely that the game has been planned as a eulogy of sorts but that would be a beautiful thing."

Julian Gollop was involved in the original X-COM and recently completed a successful Kickstarter for Chaos Reborn, a single and multiplayer turn-based games of wizards warring for supremacy. It is now available for both Windows and Linux on Steam Early access and you can visit the official site of you are interested in picking up extras on top of the game itself. One of the more interesting features is the in game gold, which is earned while playing single player but is spent on upgrades for multiplayer and is not available for purchase outside of the game. There will be no pay to win, instead it is a play to win model that those familiar with multiplayer FPS games such as Battlefield are familiar with. If that style of game holds any attraction to you and you loved X-COM then head to Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN for a look.

"What the singleplayer ‘Realms’ mode does, at least in this earliest, unfinished incarnation, is both encourage you to experiment with different gear in order to gain an edge over tougher or specialised enemy, and give you a way to get hold of new gear without having to repeatedly brave (or beat) multiplayer opponents."

Logitech Focuses in on Gaming

Logitech has been around seemingly forever. The Swiss based company is ubiquitous in the peripherals market, providing products ranging from keyboards and mice, to speakers and headsets. There is not much that the company does not offer when it comes to PC peripherals. Their 3 button mice back in the day were considered cutting edge that also happened to be semi-programmable. Since that time we have seen them go from ball mice, to optical mice, to the latest laser based products that offer a tremendous amount of precision.

Gaming has become one of the bigger movers for Logitech, and they have revamped their entire lineup as well as added a few new products to hopefully cash in on the popularity of modern gaming. To further address this market Logitech has designed and marketed a new batch of gaming headsets. These promise to be moderately priced, but high quality products that bear the Logitech name. We go from the very basic up to the top 7.1 wireless products. Originally these covered a pretty significant price range, but lately the discounts have been extremely deep. The lowest end gaming headset is at $40US while the 7.1 wireless model comes in around $90 US.

I am looking at two models today that span the lowest end to the 2nd highest. The first headset is the G230 analog set. The second is the G35 wired 7.1 USB with Dolby Headphone technology. I have never been a fan of wireless headphones, but the G35 should be a fairly good approximation of the performance of that part.

My goal is to look at these two wired units and see what Logitech can offer at these two very affordable price points.